rib-tickling

On social media, videos of the incident have been watched tens of thousands of times and many Twitter users have posted rib-tickling comments in response to the visuals.

But for the brand of musical comedy that Sondheim and book writer James Lapine were after — a storybook world of out-of-control anxiety — some rib-tickling personal dazzle is absolutely the right way to go.

The protean Troy Valjean Rucker is a standout in multiple roles, including a florist who delivers a rib-tickling Shakespeare pun.

The smack itself sent the internet into a frenzy with many taking to Twitter and other media channels to either make light of the situation in the form of rib-tickling memes or to lend their two cents as spectators who had witnessed an on-camera assault by one of show business's most "wholesome" performers.

They are rollicking riots of rib-tickling jocularity, side-splitting expeditions into the ironic arts.